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14.2.11

Happy Valentines Day

I wrote about our valentines story back herelast year. But as I only got my first page view in June I thought I would tell you a little bit more about how the mister and I got together, and my experience of love so far in my twenty five years of life.

My first actual real (although fleeting) boyfriend was the year above me in college. I'm not sure if it could actually be called a relationship but I learnt a good lesson so I thought it was fitting to mention. Most of the people I knew had been out with this guy and it was considered generally amongst my group of friends that he was pretty 'fit'. He asked me out the summer I had finished my GCSE's and we dated (sort of holding hands and kissing occasionally kind of dating) for approximately two months. I remember feeling totally honored that he would want to date me when he had gone out with so many pretty girls (even when he smoked in my bedroom and was rude to my mum, i thought he was the bee's knees). He then cheated on me with another girl in our group of friends and ended our relationship at the train station (he put me on the train home and then I watched from the window as his new girlfriend got off the train and they embraced at the station haha). I find that story pretty funny now!
I remember getting home and crying in the kitchen to my dad about how much I was 'in love' with him. My mum left me a Moomins card outside my bed room with a note that said
'believe in you, I do, its true'.I still to this day have that card as it means a lot to me.

My second boyfriend and I started dating pretty soon after. I was 16, had just started my A Levels and he was seven years older than me. He was in a band, he smoked and took drugs, he stood me up countless times and hadn't had a job for six years..I think I thought I could probably 'change him' as I knew he was a good person really. We were together for five years, he ended our relationship the day I had my final degree show..shortly after I found out he had given away my original artwork in a poker game. My mum told me that 'I try to see the best in people and their potential, but it doesn't mean that they want to be that person' she also told me that whatever heart break I felt now would feel less and less everyday until it was only bittersweet memories. She was right.My third attempt at a relationship was actually not so dramatic or painful. We dated for a little over a year and ended it mutually when we realised we were better suited as friends than partners. There was no love lost as we had never actually been in love. It was refreshing to know that not all relationships have to end so badly and I started planning my life as a single 22 year old. I had been in a relationship almost constantly since I was 15 and thought it would be good to get to know who I was without being a girlfriend.

Then I met Tom.

It was a few weeks before I was due to move to another city and start my life a fresh. I was going to a comedy gig with my pal Dona and her boyfriend, she said she had to meet up with a friend she used to work with before we went as she had his tickets. Her friend was Tom.Usually when I don't know someone I am painfully painfully shy, we were at the pub before hand with about six other people. We got to talking about exotic pets or something for some reason, up until this point I hadn't ventured much to the conversation, but I suddenly thought of this story I heard of where a boa constrictor pet is planning to eat its owner (you know it?, I'll tell you another time). I started telling the story and suddenly everyone had stopped talking and was listening to me..Tom was sitting opposite and I remember suddenly being aware that he was very cute and was listening to me really intently.
When we got to the event we were the only two that were not smokers so went inside for drinks. We established we both liked cats, he told some jokes and I started thinking he was pretty funny as well as cute. We sat together at the gig and then after at the pub were we talked about planetariums and the music we liked...I told him I was leaving the city in a few weeks and then I left to go home around midnight. I thought that would be the last time I would see him, I kept thinking about him all weekend and even told my friend at lunch on Monday how I had met this 'cute guy'. And when I got back to my desk I got this email (forwarded on by Dona).

We met up a few times before I left, going for drinks listening to music. I was so determined not to fall in love with him, to be a single person and to move away to a new life, sharing a flat with a girlfriend and going out as a single lady. On the day before I left I met up with him one last time, he had bought me a turquoise playmobile unicorn after some flippant remark I had made about never being able to find this exact one I had had as a child (they were always the wrong colour) but he had remembered and hunted it down. As he put me on the bus to the station I remember waving from the back window and thinking 'S**t!I think I have fallen for him'.

(picture to represent me being single hehe!)

I still moved away, we wrote each other letters, with thoughtful gifts and spoke on the phone everyday. On the 14th of February 2009 (with the help of my kind brother and sister in law) I packed up all my things and moved back down to Bristol to live with my friend Dona at first and then six months later with Tom. It was pretty much the most sensible thing I have ever done. Even though I had no money, no bed (tom bought me a blow up one) no furniture. I was trying to fight admitting I had made a mistake in moving away, that it didn't matter if I was falling in love with him as I had to prove I could do it on my own. I was wrong, being with Tom since that day has turned my life around. I'm a better person, I've taken charge of my life and the direction I want it to go in. Without his constant help and support and patience and love I wouldn't have been able to achieve half the things I have done with my life. And whats more they wouldn't mean anything without him to share them with me.
There are times when he drives me absolutely mental and we argue sometimes just like everyone else. I'm sure I exasperate him just as much if not more. But I would have that a million times over for all the other times we share together.

The reason I wrote about my other experiences with relationships is that I feel like I had to go through all those times to appreciate what I have now. To realise you have to kiss some frogs before you get your prince. (cheeeesy or what?!)I love you Thomas Quinn xoxo

5 comments:

This is the email that I sent to Dona. I never meant for her to forward it on to you, but obviously now I am glad that she did.xxx

Your friend Fritha is lovely. I would like to marry her and live under the sea in a castle made of marshmallows. She would make earrings out of shells to sell to fish and I would support her even though fish don’t have ears. Obviously the business would fail and we would lose the marshmallow castle, but we would be happy, because we would have each other.